Restitution (The Edge of Darkness, #3)

by Leigh Rivers

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. You’re okay. You’re safe with me,” he says softly as he strokes my hair, letting me cry into his chest. “I found you, little one.”

“I’ll fall to my knees and beg for forgiveness the next time I see her.”

Fuck. Her voice. She has no idea how much she soothes the darkness within me. It’s like the fragments of my heart slowly join back together – until I hear the soft whimper of her trying to hold in her tears, and everything comes crashing down again, because I caused those tears.

Stacey Rhodes. My girl. My anchor that sank to the bottom of the ocean without me.

I’ll spend the rest of my life by his side, even if he can barely look at me, register that I’m sitting beside him or speak to me. I’ll hold his hand when he needs me to. I’ll just… be there.

“I love you. Every broken part of me has loved you from the moment I met you.”

“I’ll make it worth it, little one,” he whispers against my hair. “Just you watch. Heaven and hell will see the flames of their downfall.”

tobias mitchell the man you are

I never truly knew what it was like inside my dad’s head, but I think I do now. It’s fucking scary and lonely, and I get so damn angry all the time.

Being loved by Stacey Rhodes is a dream. Why does my dream need to be a nightmare?

“You have a beautiful soul,” she says. “You’re worth more than death.”

“I want your heart, every single fucking fragment that I’ve broken over the years. I have your past and your present, and I want to be a selfish asshole and have your future.”

“Because you’re going to be my wife. You’ve already taken my heart, my body, and my butchered soul, so you’ll take my fucking last name too.”

I was a nervous eighteen-year-old who couldn’t stop obsessing over her. It seems nothing ever really changes because I’m still fucking obsessed. It feels like I’ve been in love with this girl since I was born.

You’re amazing, do you know that? I was lucky to have you for even a short space of time. There aren’t any threats left. No Chris, no Bernadette. You can dance and sing and live.”

“Just… promise me you won’t pause your life for me?” She smiles through her tears. “Kade Mitchell,” she says, reaching up on her tiptoes and kissing me again. “Don’t you get it? You are my life.”

Kade Mitchell and Stacey Rhodes – the fifteen-year-olds who met by the pool twenty years ago – finally get to have their forever.